1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a headset system for short range radio communication that realizes secrecy of the communication contents and easiness of search and reproduction, while enabling constant communication and constant recording by connecting ubiquitous devices through short range radio communications.
2. Description of the Related Art
The short range wireless communication system called Bluetooth has been developed, and it becomes possible to connect and control devices such as PC, printer, portable telephone, digital camera, etc., without using any cords.
In such a situation, the use of a headset with a radio communication function has been proposed in order to promote the application of such a system to the mobile environment and improve the convenience and smoothness of communications.
Currently, the mutual communications by radio are dominated by the speech communications using portable telephones and mails or chats using mobile terminals. However, in the case of the portable telephone, it is necessary to make a connection by specifying a correspondent at each occasion of making a communication. Also, the conversation exchanged through it is intact only on the spot and the conversed content is lost forever once the portable telephone is disconnected. On the other hand, in the case of the mail or chat by the radio communication, the communication contents will be preserved as texts but it is necessary to enter all the communication contents manually at the time of its use.
For these reasons, there is a demand for a system in which the content of the radio communication using speeches can be recorded in real time, stored and effectively utilized at later time. The recording of the speech has conventionally been realized by recording only a necessary portion of the direct sounds propagated as sound waves by using a recording device such as a tape recorder. The constant recording requires significant time and effort, so that it has not been realized except for the special cases such as-that surveying person's behavior for the academic purpose, for example. In recent years, a computer to be worn on the body and its applications have been studied in the field of the wearable computer, but how to process various information (environmental information and biological information) that is constantly sensored still remains as a subject to the further studying.
There is also a proposition of a technique for continuously recording surrounding sounds by providing a recording function to a PC, but this technique is only designed to be the first person type use in which the direct sounds propagated from the external as sound waves are to be recorded. The recorded content is stored in a memory inside the PC first, and it is impossible to transmit the detected speech directly to the third person in real time.
Also, there exists a conference recording system for recording the content of the conference and reproduce or search that later on, but it only records the discussion on a prescribed topic over a prescribed period of time under the stiff circumstance.
In such a circumstance, there is a proposition of a system in which a user wearing a headset with a radio communication function can communicate and record the digitized speech in real time and utilize the recorded data effectively later on. There is a proposition of a technique by which a user wearing a headset with a radio communication function can control a device by speech commands in real time, and communicate and record speech data such as those of the dictation in real time.
Such a headset system enables a user to carry out the communication, recording and device controlling under a free situation without having the user's action restricted, because it is wireless. Also, the user's speeches are picked up by a microphone, transmitted in a digitized form and record, so that it is possible to communicate and store the clear speeches with little noises superposed thereon. The recorded data have hardly any degradation so that they are suitable for preservation, copying, direct text formation, searching, etc.
However, along with these merits, there arises a need to cope with newly created problems such as unauthorized reproduction, unauthorized utilization, disclosure, alteration, etc. In particular, in the case of introducing the above described headset system into highly secret conferences or medical practices, there is a need to secure the protection of the privacy and the secrecy of the recorded data.
Also, there is a need for a headset system with a high level of security such that the recorded data will not be used maliciously and the headset itself will not be used in illegitimate ways.
Also, there is a need for a technique for simplifying search and reproduction while surely protecting the secret of the recorded content in order to effectively utilize the recorded data later on.
Also, in the case of utilizing the recorded content as an evidence later on, it is preferable for the recorded content to have a value as an evidence equivalent to the documentary records or the like.
In addition, if the constant communication and constant recording are presupposed, it can be easily expected that there are cases where it is not desired to record or to be recorded, or it is recorded but it is not desired to be reproduced, depending on circumstances. Consequently, there is also a need for a technique to control the recording and the reproduction in such cases.
In addition, there is also a need to account for the emotional factors such as a desire for hearing, a desire for not hearing, a willingness for hearing, a desire for not allowing others to hear, a desire for making others to hear, etc.